Animals != humans
Apr. 8th, 2008 01:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
emmelinemayKnut 'senselessly murdered the carp', fishing them out, playing with them and then leaving the remains.
Ok, seriously guys. It's a BEAR. Bears eat fish. If a lion kills an antelope, it's not murder, it's nature. Murder is a human concept, and not even a universal one at that. Go back into (even recent) history, or deep enough into the uncharted jungles you'll find tribes who won't understand the concept.
Does that mean anyone that eats meat is a murder? Or are you just an accessory to murder? Is it only murder if you kill someone for fun? If you eat a hamburger for fun, does that count?
This news popped up my my friends list at the same moment that my colleagues and I were discussing Louis Theroux's 'African Hunting Holiday' documentary (avialable on IPlayer for 5 days). I've mixed opinions about Theroux, I think he asks very leading questions and enters situations with a strong bias. I've found some of his shows really fascinating and a bit scary, but others I feel he tries to make an issue out of something that should be a non-issue. I felt a similar way about the game hunting episode - but then, it did resonate with my thoughts lately about my moral choices, my food choices, and how I see the world.
I've been to South Africa, and I admit, it did change me a little. It's hard to stand underneath that sky that goes on forever, and the landscape stretching around you, and everything being so open and different, without feeling yourself changing a little.
Mum has some rugs in her B&B, a zebra in the Zebra Room, a wildebeest in the cottage, and some form of bok (a blasebok perhaps?) in the leopard room (leopard skins are really expensive). At first, I was horrified by these rugs. Mum assured me she'd got them from licensed places, where the game is managed, in much the same way as those featured on Theroux's show.
I came to understand how things are in Africa, and understand why game hunting there is actually a really important industry. It is mentioned in the documentary, but I don't feel that it was truly a two sided argument you got.
Theroux has got emotion on his side - Lions are handsome, Impala are basically Bambi, and zebras are stripy horses. It is emotional watching people kill them for fun, when you love and respect animals, but if you can put that aside, you can understand that the industry is, perhaps paradoxically, vital to the survival of many species in Africa. It creates employment, provides industry in the meat and skins, and encourages tourism. All very important. It's important to realise that Africa != the UK. Things are very, VERY different there. One guy does point this out to Loius, that he was raised in a different culture, that to understand hunting you need to understand Africa.
An interesting point is made in the programme drawing a contrast between the game reserves and traditional farming, asking why is game hunting any more cruel than intensive farming? It's a good point. In many farms, the animals have little space to roam as they would in the wild, they're transported alive in cramped lorries to slaughterhouses where they are lined up and killed, sometimes (as in the case of Halal meat) pretty damn cruelly.
On a game reserve, the animals live out a free life in huge amounts of space, with little to fear from even lions as they're often kept separately, they're killed (on the one shown at least) with bolt guns which are quieter than shotguns to avoid stress to the other animals, they're killed as quickly as possible without any stressful buildup.
I, personally, cannot understand why anyone would find it fun to kill an animal for sport. But that is just me, and I am not going to say that it's wrong, just because I can't understand it.
I think the only person that really irritated me in the whole thing was Louis Theroux himself, when he said that he would eat the animal, but couldn't kill it.
I've always rather felt that if you aren't prepared to kill an animal, you shouldn't eat it. You should know where it came from, know what die for your chicken korma, or your kangeroo burger, or your crocodile steak.
I know that if I was stuck on an island, and had a choice between starving to death and killing a bunny rabbit, it's me all the way, sorry Bugs.
The reason I stopped eating meat, waaaay back before I was a teenager, was that I found the whole thing rather grim, to be honest. I remember becoming aware when I was very little that baa-lambs = lamb chops and thinking not 'awww, I can't eat the baby lamb' so much as 'euw, that's DISGUSTING I don't want to eat a dead thing'. My parents would get me to eat meat by making sure it looked nothing like meat.
Once I was old enough, I badgered my Mum to let me go veggie, and she relented. I've never looked back. Occasionally I'll think about a burger, but that's about it. Never been tempted, probably won't ever be, unless it's me or the rabbit on that island.
It was never a moral decision then. In time, as I learned more about the farming industry, it became a moral decision. I still see nothing wrong, however, with eating free range meat, 'happy' animals if you like. Animals that have a good, free, normal life up until the point they're used for food. I also see nothing wrong, if you're going to kill that animal for food, to use the rest of it as a by product.
It becomes sticky ground for me when you are killing it solely for the fur or skin, and the rest is a by product. It becomes even stickier when the animals are mis-treated in life.
I realised I had a dairy 'issue' relatively recently, maybe about 5 or 6 years ago. At first I used pills from America, but as I learnt more about the dairy industry, I was put off.
I was put off, and this is important, NOT because I think it's wrong to use animal products. I was put off because of the treatment of the animals in that industry. That's why I decided to avoid dairy.
Eggs do funny things to me, so I avoid them anyway. I hate the idea of animals being used for cosmetic testing, so I avoid those products where I can.
But I've never managed to be totally vegan, and to be honest, I'm no longer sure I want to. I've realised that for many vegans, it's all about seeing our use of animal products as inherently wrong, seeing the act of eating meat as an act of murder, seeing the act of wearing leather shoes as an unnecessary vanity.
I don't agree. All animals use all other animals, for food, protection, even for things like lice removal. Humans are naturally omnivorous, we have the teeth for it, and we can't get all of our nutrients from vegetables alone, that's why veggies/vegans need to take supplements to stay healthy.
I also think that many of the products used by vegans are possibly worse for the environment than the 'real thing'. Fibres and even food are so full of horrendous things (read the ingredients on some vegan cheese sometime) that can't be good for the environment, including petrochemicals. I've met a number of vegans who happily wear PVC, blissfully unaware of how damaging the production of it can be to the environment and animals.
So, because I disagree with, well, pretty much every vegan I've ever met, I can only conclude that I'm not, actually, a vegan.
I am a lactose and egg intolerant vegetarian. I might occasionally say in a restaurant that I eat a vegan diet, simply because that's easier. But I don't consider myself a vegan any more. It doesn't change anything about the way I eat, I still can't have pizza, or a fry up, but it does change the way I see myself I guess.
I stand by my opinion though, that if you are going to eat meat, you should eat any meat, not pick and choose which you will eat because some are 'cute'. I also think that if you are going to eat meat, you should be able to kill an animal with the knowledge that it will be eaten.
What do you think?
[Poll #1167728]
You can read a related rant, including what I think about PETA, here
Ok, seriously guys. It's a BEAR. Bears eat fish. If a lion kills an antelope, it's not murder, it's nature. Murder is a human concept, and not even a universal one at that. Go back into (even recent) history, or deep enough into the uncharted jungles you'll find tribes who won't understand the concept.
Does that mean anyone that eats meat is a murder? Or are you just an accessory to murder? Is it only murder if you kill someone for fun? If you eat a hamburger for fun, does that count?
This news popped up my my friends list at the same moment that my colleagues and I were discussing Louis Theroux's 'African Hunting Holiday' documentary (avialable on IPlayer for 5 days). I've mixed opinions about Theroux, I think he asks very leading questions and enters situations with a strong bias. I've found some of his shows really fascinating and a bit scary, but others I feel he tries to make an issue out of something that should be a non-issue. I felt a similar way about the game hunting episode - but then, it did resonate with my thoughts lately about my moral choices, my food choices, and how I see the world.
I've been to South Africa, and I admit, it did change me a little. It's hard to stand underneath that sky that goes on forever, and the landscape stretching around you, and everything being so open and different, without feeling yourself changing a little.
Mum has some rugs in her B&B, a zebra in the Zebra Room, a wildebeest in the cottage, and some form of bok (a blasebok perhaps?) in the leopard room (leopard skins are really expensive). At first, I was horrified by these rugs. Mum assured me she'd got them from licensed places, where the game is managed, in much the same way as those featured on Theroux's show.
I came to understand how things are in Africa, and understand why game hunting there is actually a really important industry. It is mentioned in the documentary, but I don't feel that it was truly a two sided argument you got.
Theroux has got emotion on his side - Lions are handsome, Impala are basically Bambi, and zebras are stripy horses. It is emotional watching people kill them for fun, when you love and respect animals, but if you can put that aside, you can understand that the industry is, perhaps paradoxically, vital to the survival of many species in Africa. It creates employment, provides industry in the meat and skins, and encourages tourism. All very important. It's important to realise that Africa != the UK. Things are very, VERY different there. One guy does point this out to Loius, that he was raised in a different culture, that to understand hunting you need to understand Africa.
An interesting point is made in the programme drawing a contrast between the game reserves and traditional farming, asking why is game hunting any more cruel than intensive farming? It's a good point. In many farms, the animals have little space to roam as they would in the wild, they're transported alive in cramped lorries to slaughterhouses where they are lined up and killed, sometimes (as in the case of Halal meat) pretty damn cruelly.
On a game reserve, the animals live out a free life in huge amounts of space, with little to fear from even lions as they're often kept separately, they're killed (on the one shown at least) with bolt guns which are quieter than shotguns to avoid stress to the other animals, they're killed as quickly as possible without any stressful buildup.
I, personally, cannot understand why anyone would find it fun to kill an animal for sport. But that is just me, and I am not going to say that it's wrong, just because I can't understand it.
I think the only person that really irritated me in the whole thing was Louis Theroux himself, when he said that he would eat the animal, but couldn't kill it.
I've always rather felt that if you aren't prepared to kill an animal, you shouldn't eat it. You should know where it came from, know what die for your chicken korma, or your kangeroo burger, or your crocodile steak.
I know that if I was stuck on an island, and had a choice between starving to death and killing a bunny rabbit, it's me all the way, sorry Bugs.
The reason I stopped eating meat, waaaay back before I was a teenager, was that I found the whole thing rather grim, to be honest. I remember becoming aware when I was very little that baa-lambs = lamb chops and thinking not 'awww, I can't eat the baby lamb' so much as 'euw, that's DISGUSTING I don't want to eat a dead thing'. My parents would get me to eat meat by making sure it looked nothing like meat.
Once I was old enough, I badgered my Mum to let me go veggie, and she relented. I've never looked back. Occasionally I'll think about a burger, but that's about it. Never been tempted, probably won't ever be, unless it's me or the rabbit on that island.
It was never a moral decision then. In time, as I learned more about the farming industry, it became a moral decision. I still see nothing wrong, however, with eating free range meat, 'happy' animals if you like. Animals that have a good, free, normal life up until the point they're used for food. I also see nothing wrong, if you're going to kill that animal for food, to use the rest of it as a by product.
It becomes sticky ground for me when you are killing it solely for the fur or skin, and the rest is a by product. It becomes even stickier when the animals are mis-treated in life.
I realised I had a dairy 'issue' relatively recently, maybe about 5 or 6 years ago. At first I used pills from America, but as I learnt more about the dairy industry, I was put off.
I was put off, and this is important, NOT because I think it's wrong to use animal products. I was put off because of the treatment of the animals in that industry. That's why I decided to avoid dairy.
Eggs do funny things to me, so I avoid them anyway. I hate the idea of animals being used for cosmetic testing, so I avoid those products where I can.
But I've never managed to be totally vegan, and to be honest, I'm no longer sure I want to. I've realised that for many vegans, it's all about seeing our use of animal products as inherently wrong, seeing the act of eating meat as an act of murder, seeing the act of wearing leather shoes as an unnecessary vanity.
I don't agree. All animals use all other animals, for food, protection, even for things like lice removal. Humans are naturally omnivorous, we have the teeth for it, and we can't get all of our nutrients from vegetables alone, that's why veggies/vegans need to take supplements to stay healthy.
I also think that many of the products used by vegans are possibly worse for the environment than the 'real thing'. Fibres and even food are so full of horrendous things (read the ingredients on some vegan cheese sometime) that can't be good for the environment, including petrochemicals. I've met a number of vegans who happily wear PVC, blissfully unaware of how damaging the production of it can be to the environment and animals.
So, because I disagree with, well, pretty much every vegan I've ever met, I can only conclude that I'm not, actually, a vegan.
I am a lactose and egg intolerant vegetarian. I might occasionally say in a restaurant that I eat a vegan diet, simply because that's easier. But I don't consider myself a vegan any more. It doesn't change anything about the way I eat, I still can't have pizza, or a fry up, but it does change the way I see myself I guess.
I stand by my opinion though, that if you are going to eat meat, you should eat any meat, not pick and choose which you will eat because some are 'cute'. I also think that if you are going to eat meat, you should be able to kill an animal with the knowledge that it will be eaten.
What do you think?
[Poll #1167728]
You can read a related rant, including what I think about PETA, here
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 01:08 pm (UTC)What animal was it?
I am far more respectful of meat eaters that can do that than I am of people that will eat a burger but turn away when an animal is killed on TV. If you're going to eat meat, you should damn well be aware of what it is you're eating.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 01:09 pm (UTC)If I was dull enough to go fishing though, then I could, but I think that's because I'm used to seeing whole dead fish in shops, whereas you almost never see, say, an entire dead pig at the butcher. Even if it looks whole, then it's been skinned by that point, and so looks more like meat than an actual dead animal, and dead animals freak me out in a way that meat never does.
Mmm, meat.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 01:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 01:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 01:12 pm (UTC)And thanks :)
no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 01:13 pm (UTC)I can't get over that people are shocked that a bear is being a bear. Hand reared or not, it's a fucking BEAR. Hand rearing a bear is not going to make it human.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 01:13 pm (UTC)It's much the same as how I'm happy to do a poo in a toilet, but I wouldn't want to have to clean poo off toilets. Someone has to do it... just not me.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 01:15 pm (UTC)Would you consider one of those hunting holidays though? Do you think the idea of going on holiday simply to kill, say, a warthog, so you have a picture of you killing a warthog is weird/cruel/a-ok?
I find it a bit weird, personally, but in context of how it works in Africa, don't condemn it at all.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 01:16 pm (UTC)I'm from down that way too, and it had the opposite effect - I ended up a veggie because for the first 6 years of my life I lived by a farm, and after that dad lived 5 mins walk from a cattle market. That place (temporarily) turned my sister veggie too.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 01:18 pm (UTC)I think I've got very similar atttiudes to you. If one is talking about the ethics of the food industry, then local farmhouse-produced meat is going to be more 'ethical' than a packet of mass-produced, artificial Quorn sausages. My problem, though, is that I JUST DON'T LIKE MEAT. I have tried eating it a few times since I've grown out of the whole 'meat is murder' thing, and even the most exquisitely-cooked, free range, top quality meat just tastes like YUK to me. It's a dead thing! I can't eat that!
So I eat the Quorn sausages instead because, well, I just prefer them. If I had to kill and eat meat to survive, though, I suspect I'd have to learn to like it.
Also ... most vegans are mental! We had three walk out of our pub the other week because THERE WAS HONEY ON THE PARSNIPS on the Sunday roast! Mental I tell ya!
no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 01:20 pm (UTC)I eat meat. I'm not a 'carnivore' but I do enjoy it. However I'll only buy organic, free range meat and I prefer to get it from butchers who can guarantee certain ethical standards.
The African example I have is an odd one. The Masai warriors are expected to run down and kill a lion; it is a coming of age rite. they do not eat the lion but they do use the skin and parts of the body for rituals and as adornment. When I spent some time with them I found this difficult. You are given a 'welcome hat' made from lion skin to wear. I'm still of the opinion that it is the Masai equivalent of a clown hat and they give it to people so they can laugh at them, but if that is the case then the Masai are bloody good at playing it deadpan. It did, however, make me feel uncomfortable. It is the same as wearing fur ... I can't bring myself to do it; even rabbit fur (and remember I eat rabbit meat) seems wrong to me.
Leather, on the other hand, seems fine to me whereas there is no way I would eat horse meat again, nor zebra, nor camel (out of respect for the feelings of a friend of mine who thinks they are beautiful and would be upset by it)
no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 01:21 pm (UTC)As to your last para, I would just say that I don;t think meat eaters shoudl be expected to eat any meat. Why shouldn't they be allowed to discriminate amongst certain meats? I mean, I eat some veggies but not others, because I find the others (sprouts, particularly) disgusting. Similarly, I eat some animals but not others (insects for example) that I find disgusting.
-x-
no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 01:25 pm (UTC)I think if I wasn't so repelled by the idea of eating meat, I'd switch back and go organic only - I really think that's more sensible and viable than vegetarianism. I really don't think I could eat meat again though.
I can't eat quorn, it's got eggs in, and eggs do not make my stomach happy at all.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 01:28 pm (UTC)For example, many people won't eat animals that are carnivores or omnivores, for health risk reasons, or taste reasons.
My issue is when someone will eat a cow, but not a rabbit, because a rabbit is 'cute'; or a deer because 'it's bambi' or will point at a culture that eats cats or zebra, and goes 'that's horrible' because we see cats as pets or zebra as horses, without being aware that distinctions like that are entirely cultural.
I think caymans are cute, but if I was a meat eater and was offered a cayman burger I'd probably try it.
Sorry for not making that more clear!
no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 01:32 pm (UTC)I agree with this. I'd quite like to be able to eat the same food as my partner for a start. The couple of times I tried it, though, I felt really sick and depressed afterwards.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 01:33 pm (UTC)Maybe there would be berries on the desert island. I could eat them. :-)
no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 01:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 01:34 pm (UTC)I used to be a vegetarian, but stopped because I felt that it was inherently hypocritical. I don't feel that *eating meat* is wrong, only abusing animals in the way that we often do with our modern farming practices. Plus the dairy industry as you rightly say, is just as bad, and I feel that the only morally consistent choice would be to become vegan, and I simply could not do that. I felt that by not eating meat I was drawing a very artbitrary line in the sand and not really doing anything to relieve animal suffering.
These days I do eat meat, but only a little. I'd like to say that all the meat I eat is ethically sourced free range from happy animals etc. etc. but of course, that means buying whole joints that you cook with for the most part, and because Richard is vegetarian, I basically just don't eat meat at home or cook with it at all. So most of the meat I eat is in sandwiches at lunch time and stuff like that where it's harder to know where it's come from. I do buy those sandwiches from M&S though, because they (claim) to have high standards of animal welfare. I will always favour meat and milk from animals that I perceive to have been better treated.
I'm completely against killing animals solely for their skin. I wear leather shoes because I believe those are made mostly from the by-products of the meat industry, although it's difficult to find out for sure (and also because my feet go red and swell up if I wear plastic shoes on a daily basis). I would never wear leather clothes though, because as far as I know this generally comes from animals reared specifically for their skin. But again it's difficult to know where the leather has really come for.
When we bought a new sofa recently, it came from a guy who handmade it to our specification. The sofa itself is upholstered in fabric, but has indian ox leather on the base. The guy offered to do the whole lot in fabric, which is what I would have preferred, but Richard decided to go for the leather because "it looked nicer". I'm sure that such large cuts of such specialised leather must have come from animals reared for their skin, so I have never been able to understand why a vegetarian would make that choice, but as he was paying, I guess it was up to him.
When it comes to killing animals for food -- I know that it would upset me greatly to do so, but I'm fairly sure that in a hunger situation I could do it. If I had to kill every piece of meat I ate, then I guess I would probably eat a lot less. But then I eat very little anyway.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 01:34 pm (UTC)-x-
no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 01:35 pm (UTC)We'll just have to hope you're never trapped on the Island Of The Rabbits.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 01:38 pm (UTC)I've been told that british leather is a by-product of the meat industry. I don't know if this is gospel, but it would be interesting to find out when I've time to google that.
I think Italian leather is specialist, and usually animals reared for skin only, which is why it's higher quality?
no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 01:38 pm (UTC)But yes, if I was given the choice to kill animals or die myself, I'm afraid the rabbit/fish/whatever would get it and I wouldn't like eating it much but I wouldn't have to luxury of a choice. Obviously this takes for granted the fact that I'd be able to hunt and kill something. I might actually prove to be so inept at hunting that I starved WAY before I caught anything! ;)
no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 01:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 01:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 01:41 pm (UTC)